three bodies found with a bullet in the head – Libération

The three bodies found in a seaside resort on the Mexican Pacific coast correspond to three foreign surfers, two Australians and an American, who have been missing for several days, the public prosecutor’s office of the state of Baja California said on Sunday, May 6.

A van theft gone wrong. This is the route favored by the Mexican authorities, while the three bodies which were found in a seaside resort on the Pacific coast are those of foreign surfers who had been missing for several days. “The prosecution confirms that the bodies found correspond to the names of Jake and Callum Robinson), of Australian origin, and the American Jack Carter,” said Sunday, May 6, the general prosecutor’s office of the state of Baja California (north). -west).

The families of the two Australian brothers and the American arrived in Mexico on Sunday to formally identify the three bodies found with a bullet in the head, the prosecution said earlier in the day. “They all have a hole in their head produced by a firearm projectile,” detailed the state attorney general, Maria Elena Andrade.

On Saturday, the prosecutor specified that the bodies were in an “advanced state of decomposition”, complicating their complete identification. “However, based on their clothing and certain characteristics such as long hair and specific physical descriptions, the probability is high,” she said, when asked about the possibility that these were the three missing foreigners.

Journalists deployed near Ensenada, a coastal city of 500,000 inhabitants, saw rescue teams and forensic experts extract, using a pulley system, what appeared to be corpses covered in mud, from a well located in a cliff above the Pacific, more than six kilometers from where the surfers were. Another body was discovered in the same place, but analyzes showed that it had been there for longer and had nothing to do with the disappearance of the three surfers.

The two brothers, Jake and Callum Robinson, aged 30 and 33 respectively, and their American friend Jack Carter, 30, all surfing enthusiasts, were last seen on April 27 at Bocana de Santo Tomas, a resort seaside resort in the municipality of Ensenada. Callum Robinson’s Instagram account posts various snaps from the trio’s trip to Mexico where they can be seen enjoying beers with their feet up in a bar, lounging in a jacuzzi, eating roadside tacos, watching the waves .

Surfers demonstration

One of the hypotheses favored by investigators is that of an attempted theft of the tourists’ pick-up which went wrong. The vehicle was found burned not far from the three bodies. According to the prosecutor, the suspects saw the van and the tourists’ tents and wanted to steal their tires. But “when (the surfers) came and caught them, they certainly resisted.” According to her, that’s when the killers shot the tourists. The thieves then allegedly went to “a site extremely difficult to access” and threw the bodies into the well. Investigators do not rule out the possibility that the same suspects also threw the first body into the well as part of a previous crime.

Three suspects, including a woman, were arrested last Thursday for their possible direct or indirect participation in the affair, according to Mexican justice. A man has been charged with “disappearance”. He has a history of violence, drug trafficking and theft. The other two people were arrested for their possible participation and for possession of methamphetamines. The prosecutor specified that once the death of the three missing surfers was confirmed, the charge would be “aggravated homicide”.

The famous beaches of Baja California are frequented by many American vacationers, who take advantage of the proximity to the border with the United States. But this state is also one of the most violent in Mexico due to the presence of drug trafficking cartels. Violence occasionally strikes foreigners in Mexico. In November 2015, two Australian surfers, Dean Lucas and Adam Coleman, were killed in the state of Sinaloa, in northwestern Mexico. More recently, in March 2023, suspected members of the Gulf Cartel kidnapped four Americans in the city of Matamoros, on the US border. Two of them were killed. According to official figures, more than 41 million tourists visited Mexico in 2023, more than half of them coming from the United States with the country’s beaches as their main destinations.

In Ensenada, very popular with Americans because it is located around a hundred kilometers from the border, dozens of surfing enthusiasts demonstrated on Sunday to demand better security measures. “Beaches, safety, freedom, peace” or “No more deaths” are some of the messages that could be read on the surfboards transformed into banners.